LOUDON, N.H. — Dale Earnhardt Jr., still stinging from a blown engine last week at Chicagoland Speedway, rebounded from an early pit miscue to finish sixth Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Earnhardt had fallen back to 36th after he had to pit twice following the competition caution on Lap 30. The team had planned a two-tire stop but the jackman dropped the jack before all the lugnuts were tight.

“I am really happy to be able to rebound from earlier on pit road and get a good finish,” Earnhardt said. “The car was faster than heck (in final practice), one of the top three cars.

“I’m glad we were able to get a decent finish out of it. I just want to win one. I’m trying hard.”

A decent finish was better than a week earlier when he finished 35th at Chicago. Even though Earnhardt moved up two spots in the standings, he fell to 62 points behind Matt Kenseth, who won for the second straight week.

“Last week stung,” Earnhardt said. “It still stings pretty good. If we had won today, it might have helped a little bit. We dug a pretty deep hole. When Matt and the 48 and 18 are running like they are, we are not going to catch them running sixth. So we have to do better.”

Earnhardt had a fast enough car to be able to rally. He pitted when most drivers stayed out and got off sequence to the leaders, eventually being able to use a two-tire stop to get near the front. He led 17 laps in the middle of the race.

He restarted fourth on the final restart with 43 laps remaining, got up to third but then fell to sixth.

“We could have done a couple of things different on some restarts and I could have drove it a little better, we might have been able to win,” Earnhardt said. “Matt was pretty fast but I think whoever got out front was fast. … It’s really, really hard to pass here.

“You get stuck behind people. I think if we could have got up front, we would have had a good enough car.”

Earnhardt lost a late battle with Jamie McMurray for fifth.

“I ran out of rear tires trying to hold him off,” Earnhardt said. “I couldn’t get the power down off the corner. He was a pretty fast car to begin with so I knew it was going to be difficult to hold him off.”

It certainly was a far cry from Friday, when Earnhardt qualified 17th on the grid. He had a fast car in practice Saturday so he had confidence entering the race.

“The car was not quite as good as it was (Saturday), but I was real happy with it,” Earnhardt said. “It was real fast.”